Living in an age of extremes
Extreme natural phenomena have had a crippling effect on Greece in the past few months, coming at it with fires and floods and exposing tragic failures in getting the state mechanism to do its job at every level.
At the same time, we also saw the emergence of a sort of extreme political phenomenon with the sudden appearance of Stefanos Kasselakis, who only recently decided to return to his native Greece from the United States and to run for – and win – the leadership of the main opposition SYRIZA party. The cycle of change is now coming to a close and whether the new leader has what it takes to survive – initially in the framework of SYRIZA’s old party structures – will start to become apparent.
All of this, though, is of interest exclusively to the fans and voters of the party founded by Alexis Tsipras and has no bearing on citizens of more conservative persuasions.
“Whatever happens will be for the worse, and therefore it is in our interest that as little should happen as possible,” said Lord Salisbury, Britain’s last great Conservative, in reaction to attempts to modernize the party.
Such views, however, stopped being relevant in the late 19th century, even in the UK. And, after all, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is not a conservative; he is a centrist, a liberal – as he often stresses – with distinct elements, of course, of family tradition. In his speech to New Democracy’s parliamentary group last Thursday, he referred to Kasselakis publicly for the first time and made a rather cryptic distinction between “modernization” and “modernism.” He will have to explain just what he means in clearer terms at some point, as he probably will.
In the meantime, we still do not know whether, after resigning from SYRIZA helm, Tsipras acted as the quiet driving force behind Kasselakis’ candidacy. Whether his plan was to introduce an “authentic” version of the “American dream” into the Greek political scene so as to take a stand against Mitsotakis, a new face who, lacking experience, will simply follow the American guidebook on politics.
What is actually happening in SYRIZA is an existential crisis – at least that is what the old guard believes. Again, it is of interest only to the Left, which though constantly mutating remains a powerful force of change.
But liberalism is also a powerful force of change and not just in the economy, but also structurally in terms of society and its traditions. This is, in any case, a period of change at the regional and international levels.
What is happening in Greek politics, however, is basically a party of political vanities and is no cause for concern. Greece, being entirely dependent on the European Union economically and entirely aligned with the United States strategically, is safe. It is just following the flow of developments which are beyond its control.
